If Liz Truss had hoped to coast along this week – or indeed for a positive reception at her first conference as prime minister – she’s in for a rude awakening both here and abroad. The war in Ukraine, Brexit and the repercussions of Trussonomics on the wellbeing of the continent were brought into sharp relief last week by the international community’s unanimous despair at Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘mini budget’. Economic stability, climate and strategic security are very much on the minds of leaders here and in Europe.
The week is throwing up many challenges for the prime minister. King Charles III is not best pleased at being gagged and grounded – with his invite to COP27 being revoked and then reinstated daily, in some sort of yo-yo diplomacy. The international community fears that Truss has already confirmed Britain’s image as unreliable, unpredictable and untrustworthy. Her reputation at home and abroad is far from sound.
She’s been given a golden opportunity to repair it by our apparent latest ‘non-friend’ – France’s President Macron. He’s invited her and other close neighbours of the EU to a summit on 6 October to debate Europe’s stability and security and his idea for a European Political Community (EPC).
What’s the point of the European Political Community?
The EPC is not the EU. It is not meant to reproduce what is done by any other existing international organisation, some of which include micro-states Andorra, Monaco and San Marino – all full members of the Council of Europe, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose members include the Holy See (Vatican).
Instead, the EPC is to be the place where European countries, often at odds with each other, work together on combating existential external threats. It is to be open to all: Iceland, Baku, Yerevan, Serbia and Azerbija; the East European states between Norway and Turkey – implicitly all EU applicants; the European Economic Area (EEA) states, and other active participants in the EU’s Eastern Partnership arrangement.
EPC is designed to be a forum for European states and allies to discuss and act on matters of common interest including primarily foreign policy and security, energy security and climate change, but also wider programmes on socio-economic cooperation and mobility (including of students and researchers).
It is true that the EU itself deals with these matters, but President Macron and others feel that continental European states could benefit from addressing common interests together in what he dubbed “a new political space” free from “regulatory alignment”. In other words, free from the EU’s regulatory and legal system, its binding laws and institutional arrangements.
The question is, how? And how to do so on a basis that gives every sovereign state (except micro-states) a voice. Macron offers the vision of a bigger role for heads of state and government and their top ministers. That too should appeal to our sovereignty obsessed government.
The big ‘but’: ideology versus reason
The ideological problem for the UK, however, is that it has been ‘very clear’ about defying geography and pretending that the UK is not part of the European continent. EPC shatters that illusion at a stroke.
Worse, from Brexiters’ perspective, is the fact that the EPC originated six months ago when President Macron and EU Council President Michel called for a more inclusive political space, short of the idea of a political confederation, proposed by French President Mitterrand in 1989.
Macron and Michel have a vision of an EPC to allow “our democratic nations” to find “a new space for political cooperation, security and cooperation in the fields of energy, transport, investment, infrastructures the movement of people and in particular our youth”.
There is much in this to appeal to the UK – no regulatory alignment, a major focus on foreign policy and security (where the UK feels it has superior capabilities to others), and a system led by heads of state or government. They would be supported by foreign ministers (and maybe others) who occasionally already join EU foreign affairs council meetings.
On the face of it, the UK should leap at the opportunity to be part of a wider arrangement. It offers it a new stage and a means to end its self-imposed isolation. However, the government’s response has been typically tepid.
EPC: new or an alternative to EU enlargement?
Conservative infighting has meant that so far little attention has been given to major developments across the channel of strategic interest to the UK. The government’s position has been opaque at best.
It possibly shares the views of some other states that EPC could be a ruse to delay the EU’s enlargement and re-assure Russia that states on its borders, and even as far away as Israel, are not about to join the EU. There will be those in the civil service who recognise that the UK’s posturing has to be set aside for great issues of the day to be dealt with in a constructive manner.
The UK could choose to play an important role in shaping EPC. EPC is about political strategy and high-level governments talking face to face on a regular basis about the greatest threats to European stability and security. It is not about bringing other European countries into the EU’s regulatory frameworks. In fact, many are nowhere near ready for the kind of compliance with EU values and rules, including human rights, that membership entails. But that doesn’t mean that they do not share an interest in sustaining stability and shoring up security as much as possible on the European continent.
That is surely something that any British government should and must support. EPC could either be a platform to enable the UK to regain the credibility it has squandered through Brexit. Or it could be yet another occasion for the prime minister to say no.
